CONCLUSION 179 



field of investigation to the connotation of the modern term, 

 natural science. Even this circumscribed interest was broken up 

 into specialized studies, such as botany, chemistry, mathematics, 

 physics, physiology, etc. Investigations were carried on by the 

 active members of the Royal Society with great energy, and a re 

 ward of their efforts in startling and revolutionizing discoveries 

 came quickly and abundantly through the last quarter of the seven 

 teenth century, giving place in the eighteenth to a continued, but 

 scantily repaid, experimental activity which prepared the way for 

 the work of Franklin in Electricity, Priestley in Chemistry, and 

 Alexander Smith in Geology. A world of minutiae was revealed 

 by the microscope, and through the telescope came ocular proof of 

 the Copernican theory. Man became "an insignificant atom of an 

 atom- world ". Mathematics demonstrated the law of gravitation; 

 Physics gave a new interest to the atmosphere, to light, color, heat ; 

 Botany made men to see with an awakened curiosity the flowers 

 and the beasts of the field; Physiology discovered the wonderful 

 framework of the human body; a study of "rarities" led to an 

 tiquarian research, to which were related an interest in history 

 and an investigation of geographical and geological problems. 

 Thus were these new scientists entering ' ' the wonderland of modern 

 science ". 



'As the light of these new discoveries came flooding in, the old 

 hypotheses did not fall without noise.' It was a transitional period. 

 The point of view of men was sometimes radically changed, as in 

 the case of Sir Thomas Browne; new poetic imagery struggled 

 with the out-worn and conventional for expression in Cowley, 

 Denham, Waller, and others ; Milton stood in doubt before the new 

 ideas and finally evaded the whole issue; Dryden, engrossed with 

 the affairs of men, shifting his allegiance like changes of raiment, 

 was practically unaffected by the new intellectual impulse. Thom 

 as Sprat first lifted his voice in defense of the Royal Society against 

 the opposition of churchmen and "Wits and Railleurs", which 

 lasted through the period. "The 'shock of that collision is far 

 from having spent its effect even in our own day". 2 Sharp con 

 flicts centered in the work of Glanvil, in Burnet's Sacred Theory, 

 and in Swift's Tale of the Tub, Battle of the Books, and Partridge 



2 Courthope, W. J., History of English Poetry, vol. Ill, p. 168. 



